Russia is rightfully held responsible for and often caught red-handed spreading disinformation around the globe; but its own policymaking is, in fact, informed by similarly false assessments, which are “improved” (exacerbated) many times while traveling up the bureaucratic pyramid. For months, President Vladimir Putin has... MORE

*To read Part One, please click here.   While China remains the most active player among non-Arctic nations, other Asian actors, such as India (see Part One in EDM, May 7) and Japan (the world`s third largest economy) are playing an increasingly visible role in... MORE

Moscow’s continuing efforts to reduce the Black Sea to the status of a de facto Russian lake (see EDM, January 23) have forced Ukraine to seek increasingly inventive means of pushing back. Recently, some Ukrainian commentators have begun calling for a Timor Sea–type resolution for... MORE

While the United States struggles with the coronavirus pandemic, Russia has deployed two pipe-laying vessels to the Baltic Sea in a suspected attempt to complete the Nord Stream Two natural gas pipeline. On May 12, Russian pipe layer Akademik Cherskiy arrived at the German port... MORE

Expanding its military presence in the Arctic is currently one of the main priorities of Russian defense policy. Cold War–era military bases, mothballed after 1991, have, in recent years, been reactivated, renovated and expanded, while additional ones are being built. In Soviet times, attack and... MORE

Russia’s Aerospace Forces (Vozdushno Kosmicheskikh Sil—VKS) are preparing to create a MiG-31K regiment in the Siberian city of Kansk, in the Central Military District (MD), fully equipped with Kh-47M2 Kinzhal hypersonic missiles. The training of flight crews will commence in late 2021, with the switch to... MORE

In the evening of May 6, the Belarusian Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA) deprived Alexei Kruchinin, a journalist from Russian TV’s First Channel, of accreditation, effectively sending him and his camera crew packing (Tut.by, May 6). The reasoning behind this move was a four-minute-long TV... MORE

The pandemic and the partially related collapse in oil prices will lead to the highest budget deficit in the Russian regions for the past 20 years, despite the support of the central government, says a recent assessment by the global credit rating agency S&P. Regions... MORE

Moscow has been rather explicit in that it wants to use the trans-Baltic Nord Stream Two natural gas pipeline to more aggressively dictate gas prices and transit conditions to Ukraine. But even as the project approaches completion, despite United States sanctions, it may ultimately fail... MORE

The COVID-19 crisis has exacerbated the ongoing disinformation campaign in Armenia. Old and new false claims and biased narratives have been actively promoted in recent weeks by multiple actors, foreign and domestic. A Russian propaganda campaign pursuing geopolitical objectives has, to a large extent, overlapped... MORE